Jul 13 – 15, 2026
University of Southampton
Europe/London timezone

Looking for lights from the darkness: MeV-scale solar ALP signals

Jul 13, 2026, 11:30 AM
15m
4A, B54

4A, B54

Speaker

Yongchao Zhang

Description

MeV-scale axion-like particles (ALPs) can be produced abundantly in the Sun. The photons from ALP decay could deviate significantly from the original ALP direction, or even from roughly the opposite direction of the Sun. The nontrivial angular and spectral distributions enable us new methods to detect the lights from the darkness. We consider the space detection and terrestrial experiments at the South Pole. It is found that there is a critical height for the terrestrial searches, below which there is no flux at all for some regions of the parameter space. In the next-generation experiments, we can explore the coupling of ALP to photons up to $10^{−12}$ GeV$^{−1}$, surpassing the current supernova limits.

Authors

Dr Qiu Yu-Cheng (City University of Hong Kong) Yongchao Zhang

Presentation materials